Roller Retrofits: 95% Fewer Moving Parts & 20% of the Cost

CODI Conveyance Conversations, Part 1

"Yeah, We Do That" with Jared is a blog series where CODI Manufacturing CEO Jared Jones shares his perspective on automation machinery, manufacturing, conveyance and much more. This is part 1 of a 3 part series on conveyance.

Roller retrofits have been part of CODI's DNA since the company started over 30 years ago. In this post, Jared walks through the retrofit process: why it works, how it's done, and why more facilities are calling about it now than ever before.

Q: For someone who hasn't heard the term before, what exactly is a roller retrofit?

Jared: A roller retrofit is exactly what it sounds like. You take an existing roller conveyor and convert it to a modern belt system without replacing the whole thing. The frames stay. The conduit runs stay. Everything that's permanently built into the facility stays. We pull the rollers out, drop in our belt system using the existing frame as the structure and mounting points, and you end up with a conveyor that performs like new at a fraction of the cost of replacement. We've been doing it longer than anyone else in the industry, and it's still one of the most practical upgrades a beverage facility can make.

Q: Why does a roller retrofit make more sense than replacing the conveyor entirely?

Jared: A lot of it comes down to what's already attached to those frames. In a large production facility, by the time a conveyor has been in for any length of time, there's peripheral electrical conduit and wireway attached to those frames. These become fairly permanent plant installations. The retrofit takes advantage of that -- the existing frames become your primary structure and mounting points for the drop-in brackets that CODI manufactures.

An example of CODI's Roller Retrofit installed.

Q: What belt types go into a retrofit, and what can they do?

Jared: The brackets we design are specific to different belt types and different applications. You've got straight-running flat top belts, accumulation belts, brake belts, and metering belts. By using different combinations of those, we can achieve the same level of case accumulation you'd normally get from a roller system.

Q: You mentioned removing moving parts. What does that actually look like in practice?

Jared: One of the key points of the roller retrofit is that it removes up to 95% of all moving parts within the conveyor system. Think about a roller system purchased 20-some years ago. Each one of those rollers is driven by either a drive belt underneath, V belts, or line shafts.

A line shaft is driven by a series of individual rubber bands. You'll see maintenance guys go up and slide additional bands on while the line is running. Rubber bands are consumable products that contribute to ongoing maintenance costs.

Then you have the plate engagement style, which runs a fabric belt underneath the rollers, tied to a belt pulley. The rollers sit in the frame on a 5/8-inch hex shaft. Over time, those hex openings wear out and elongate -- the rollers drop out of position and the frame starts to wallow out. The common fix is to attach UHMW  [a hard, low-friction plastic] wear strips with 5/8-inch holes punched in them to bring the rollers back up to the correct ride height. But that's a recurring patch, not a fix. The underlying frame wear continues, roller height stays inconsistent across the run, and your maintenance team is back up there doing it again before long.

Corner sections tend to have the highest concentration of parts in any conveyor system. Most are driven by V-belts running through a series of idler pulleys, and those idlers are a chronic maintenance problem -- the bearings wear out, the pulleys stop turning, and the belts start getting torn up. On a retrofitted conveyor, that whole assembly is gone, and what's left is straightforward to inspect and service.

Compare a roller conveyor (left) to CODI's retrofit solution (right).

Q: Beyond maintenance, are there other reasons to consider a retrofit?

Jared: Safety and noise are two that don't get talked about enough. Old roller systems routinely operate above 100 decibels [roughly the noise level of a chainsaw and well above OSHA thresholds]. Modular belt systems run around 65 decibels. That's a meaningful difference for the people working on that floor every day.

There's also the physical safety side. Worn rollers fall out of frames. Carton debris from roller systems is fine enough to become airborne and cause respiratory problems. Chain drives and exposed moving rollers are catch points. A retrofitted conveyor eliminates all of that.

Q: What about other conversion systems on the market? How does CODI's approach differ?

Jared: Other retrofit approaches typically work by clipping or bolting new components directly onto the existing rollers rather than removing them. The logic is that you're saving time by keeping the rollers in place. The problem is that they're mounting to the same worn-out hardware that caused the problem in the first place. If those rollers have slop in them -- and after years in production, they usually do -- the new system inherits that instability. You've added a layer on top of a shaky foundation. You haven't solved the problem; you've just made it harder to access.

Our approach is different. We pull the rollers out, take advantage of the existing side frames, and cut any additional crossmembers that need to come out. In a lot of applications, we go to outboard-style bearings. Everything becomes accessible.

Every CODI retrofit is a fully engineered system -- we provide a complete general arrangement drawing, bill of materials, and a recommended spare parts list so future maintenance is straightforward. We also back every retrofit with a two-year performance warranty. We're confident enough in the quality of our retrofit to offer the same warranty we provide on new conveying.

Q: What does the cost comparison actually look like from a cost perspective?

Jared: The numbers tell the story pretty clearly. On a per-foot basis, a CODI retrofit runs $200 to $350 installed versus $600 to $1,100 all-in for new roller conveyor when you factor in equipment and installation. Life expectancy on a retrofit is 10-plus years. A roller conveyor typically runs 5 to 7 years before it needs significant attention.

The maintenance difference is where it really compounds. A roller system in typical condition requires roughly two hours of maintenance per week. A retrofitted belt system runs on about 4 to 6 hours every six months. Over a 10-year period, the total ownership cost on a retrofit runs about 20% of the original conveyor price. On a roller system, you're looking at 60 to 100% -- either in maintenance costs or purchasing new conveying. That math is hard to argue with.

Q: How fast can a retrofit actually be completed?

Jared: Because you're working with existing frames and existing conduit runs, you can complete the work in short windows. We've done a 100-foot straight section -- eliminating over 500 moving rollers and an old-style fabric drive -- with four people in a single eight-hour shift, including time to paint the conveyor frames once the rollers were removed. [Work completed for a major national brewing operation, one of the largest in the country.] Motor and gearbox efficiency on that project went from around 60% to above 90%. That's a real reduction in energy consumption on top of everything else.

Corners and inclines follow the same pattern. Two 180-degree corners that merge, eliminating over 300 rollers, 36 idler sheaves, a motor, gearbox, and V-drive belt -- four people, one shift. A 30-foot incline, three people, one shift. The installation model scales.

Q: Why are more facilities looking at roller retrofits now than they were 10 or 15 years ago?

Jared: The shift to lightweight packaging is a big driver. As beverage brands move to lighter, thinner corrugated, you start seeing chiming on the cases.

What is chiming? Every roller is a transfer point -- a small impact the bottom edge of the case absorbs as it travels down the line. With heavy corrugated, that's not a problem. With lighter packaging, those repeated impacts progressively deform the edges and corners of the case. That deformation is chiming. Belt systems eliminate the vast majority of those transfer points. Fewer impacts means less chiming and packaging that survives the line intact.

We're also seeing more tray-only applications -- no full case wrap -- which makes the packaging even more vulnerable to roller damage. That trend is only going in one direction.

Q: What happens when a facility wants to upgrade an existing retrofit down the road?

Jared: That's one of the things I really like about the retrofit system. Say it's been in 15 years and you want to add accumulation. We remove what's there, put new drop-ins in, and take advantage of the existing mounting holes. A lot of older retrofits were done before modern VFD speed control was widely available. With these systems, you can upgrade those drives and get considerably more start-stop intelligence out of them.

Q: What does the process look like from start to finish?

Jared: We start with a site visit -- a CODI representative comes out and measures the entire line to make sure everything we manufacture fits correctly. From there, engineering produces a general arrangement drawing for approval before any parts are built. Once that's signed off, we design, build, and ship the retrofit. A CODI representative is on-site for installation and stays through startup to make sure everything performs to expectations. The goal is that you walk away feeling like you got a new conveyor, not just a patch on an existing problem.

Q: Thanks for walking us through the roller retrofit. What are we covering in the next posts?

Jared: The retrofit is really where CODI started, so it made sense to lead with that. But it's just one piece of what we do in conveying. In the next post we'll get into new case conveyor design -- how to think about belt selection, accumulation, and corners, and where a lot of projects go wrong before they even get to the floor. After that we'll dig into the details that tend to get underspecified: inclines and declines, case turning, materials and finishes, controls, and motors and gearboxes. There are a lot of decisions that have a real impact on long-term performance and cost of ownership.

Jared Jones is CEO of CODI Manufacturing. With more than 20 years of experience, multiple patents, and a track record of scaling the business through product development and operational leadership, he brings practical insight into the challenges and opportunities shaping modern manufacturing.

CODI Manufacturing designs and manufactures case conveyor systems for beverage packaging facilities. Want to learn more about getting started with a new or replacement conveyance system?Visit codimfg.com.